3.09.2013

Published in India Currents: A Contemporary Vyasa

Jean-Claude Carrière

Just published in the March issue of India Currents!“When we started working on the Mahabharata, in
1974, we knew very little about it. At the end, 11 years later, we had gone
through a fantastic experience, not only about theatre, but about India
itself,” recounts Jean-Claude Carrière, an award winning French screenwriter
and playwright. The Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI), the
Asian Art Museum, and EnActe Arts are collaborating to bring Jean-Claude Carrière to the Asian Art Museum to present a 90-minute, one-man rendition of
the Mahabharata. Carrière believes the Mahabharata is one of the world’s great
masterpieces, and has worked for decades to bring the epic to the attention of
the world. “The Mahabharata that we have introduced to the rest of the world
is, at least for me, as magnificent as Shakespeare’s work. Why not the
Mahabharata in the west?”

Carrière is an Academy Award and Oscar Award winning
screenwriter and playwright with over 170 films to his name, including The
Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. The recipient
of a Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor, Carrière is recognized as one of the
greatest storytellers of our time. For over a decade Carrière traveled to
India, “often with an entire team of 21 actors from 16 countries plus the
production crew, researching the epic to grasp its many dimensions and ethnic
variations” explains Kalpana Desai, Program Co-Chair of SACHI. The result is a
9 hour play of the Mahabharata, condensed by Carrière and director Peter Brook
into a film version.Carrière has now
refined his creative work once more. As a talented actor who’s appeared in over
80 films and television series, Carrière will personally present the
Mahabharata as Vyasa in San Francisco.

“I have the feeling that I have old cousins in
India, made of stone and wood, cousins I know everything about (even some
secrets), and from time to time I’m going to visit them, to see how they are,”
says Carrière of his decade long research process. “Carrière is a master
storyteller in the tradition of Indian storytellers who travel from village to
village narrating episodes from the epics” explains Mary-Ann Milford, Chair of the
Department of Art and Art History at Mills College and President of SACHI.
Through the process of developing his understanding and interpretation of the
epic, Carrière brought the Mahabharata deeply into both his work and his life. “The
epic and India are inseparable. Now the epic, its vocabulary, its many stories,
its way of looking at ‘reality,’ its mythical atmosphere, its strange logic,
are all a part of me, whether I like it or not,” says Carrière. Vinita Sud Belani,
Artistic Director of EnActe Arts, elaborates, “When a master storyteller lives
with a story for eleven years and lets it seep into every pore of his being,
the experience of the retelling becomes transcendental.”

Image from Peter Brooks' Mahabharata

“In India and Southeast Asia bards have always
faced the question of how to condense an epic of the huge length and complexity of the
Mahabharata.Pitched for an audience of all ages, Carrière's Mahabharata is a unique experience to see the epic in one sitting. “It covers
the whole of the machinations of the human imagination, recognizing the
inevitable strife that occurs between people, families, and nations,” says
Milford. Despite the epic’s breadth, though, Carrière is primarily concerned
with the epic as it impacts individuals. “Most of us in India absorb the
stories of the Mahabharata through osmosis and through episodes enacted in a
live performance or serial,” says Desai. This is what Carrière was most curious
about during his research, “He did a detailed study of what the story meant to
the common man on the street. He was fascinated by the fact that most Indians
know the story, [but] very few people actually read it,” says Belani. The
Mahabharata is historically, and remains today, deeply interwoven into the
psychological fabric of South Asia. “Episodes have always been discussed at all
levels of society, and its characters are looked to as examples of behavior to
aspire to or to avoid,” comments McGill.

“As it is said in the Mahabharata, ‘We must
listen to stories. It is pleasant, and sometimes it makes you a better person.’
Sometimes. Not always. But it is worth trying,” says Carrière. And telling one
of the greatest stories ever told is why Carrière is making a special trip to
Houston and the Bay Area this spring.SACHI, founded on 50th anniversary of Indian Independence in
1997, is committed to furthering understanding of the arts of South Asia. And
this opportunity to bring Jean-Claude Carrière, in close collaboration with the
Asian Art Museum and EnActe Arts, fulfills an important part of their mission. The
event will start with an introduction by award winning film director Philip
Kaufman, followed by an invocation dance by Vidhya Subramanian and Lakh Tewari.
Amie Maciszewski will provide sitar accompaniment for the performance. “Some Indian
friends told me, ‘Beware. If you put one foot in the Mahabharata, you’ll never
get out of it.’ That was perfectly true, but I don’t complain,” says Carrière. And
luckily for Bay Area audiences, Carrière has kept himself in the Mahabharata
for a very long time.

The Mahabharata: An Indian Epic Poem Retold By A Modern Vyasa,
Jean-Claude